


Fire & Nightmares

by Callaeidae3



Series: KWmonth (Keithtober x Whumptober) [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Emotional Hurt, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Hurt/Comfort, Keith (Voltron) Whump, Keith (Voltron) is a Mess, Keith (Voltron)-centric, Team Voltron Family, kwmonth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 06:51:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16258922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callaeidae3/pseuds/Callaeidae3
Summary: KWmonth Prompts: Fire/Nightmares/Loner/AbandonedKeith exhausts himself searching for Shiro after he disappeared and it takes its toll. The team realise that he's hurting a lot more than they thought.





	1. Fire and Nightmares

Keith knows he should sleep. He’s exhausted, both from sleep deprivation and the unsuccessful five hour search for Shiro he just got back from. But he’s too keyed full of energy to rest.

The voices in his head are too loud. The fear is too real.

Shiro’s out there somewhere. The more time that passes, the less likely they’re going to get him back – that _Keith’s_ going to get him back. Tears burn his eyes at the thought.

_I’m not losing him again. I can’t._

The team don’t understand. They don’t get it.

“Begin training sequence.”

Keith lashes out at the gladiator the moment it lands.

The team might know that Keith spent months on end living alone in the desert, but they don’t know just how painful those seemingly endless days were. They don’t know the number of times Keith wished the hollowness in his chest would hurry up and finish consuming him.

They keep saying how they’re struggling without a Black Paladin, but not once have they mentioned how they’re doing without Shiro. It’s like his sudden absence doesn’t affect them.

It makes Keith furious, but he doesn’t want to get angry at them so instead he saves his venting for the training room and expends every scrap he can of it there.

Unfortunately, there’s only so much his body can take before it winds up short-circuiting.

Like now.

He’s not sure when it happens, but it’s like his mind suddenly stops working. The gladiator’s running at him again but Keith’s instincts refuse to kick in and he just lets it hit him.

Again.

And again.

And again.

He can feel the pain but he doesn’t have the strength to react to it. The staff keeps coming down on his back, bruising, winding, jarring. Keith simply lies there, accepting.

He guesses this is what he deserves for ignoring his teammate’s pleas for him to rest.

 

 

There’s a continuous whirring sound coming from the training deck. Unsurprising, Hunk thinks, until he realises it’s not met by any ringing of metal.

_That’s strange. Maybe Keith’s practising his stealth skills?_

Hunk almost shrugs it off but decides he’d better go in and check to see that Keith’s okay. He isn’t expecting to find him crumpled on the floor, the gladiator beating him with it’s staff over and over and –

“End training sequence!”

The gladiator pauses, staff raised for another hit. It doesn’t move after that.

But Keith doesn’t move either.

Hunk calls his name and he doesn’t respond.  He calls louder, purposefully makes his footsteps noisier. He makes his shoes squeak on the training room floor but still Keith doesn’t so much as twitch. When he crouches down beside him, he sees why.

Keith’s face is three shades paler than it should be. The lines beneath his eyes span all the way to his cheeks and shadows blooming at the corner of his eyes have a dark purple tint to them.

And he’s unconscious. _Oh no, he’s unconscious._

Hunk brushes Keith’s hair away from his sweaty face and taps him on the cheek. “Keith, buddy. Can you hear me?”

There’s a slight twitch in his fingers when Hunk taps him hard on the collarbone, so he takes that as a means for relief.

“Keith, I’m going to lift you up now, okay?”

It is, if Hunk’s honest, a little gross. Keith’s shirt is drenched in sweat – he had just been training after all – and some of that sweat is dried and giving off a foul odour already. No way near as nice as the smell of baking space cookies but he guesses it’s better than the reek of oil his Dad’s garage would smell like in the summer.

A pang of homesickness washes over him as slides an arm under Keith’s shoulders. It makes him wonder what it will be like to go home to his family at the end of all of this. Presuming, of course, that they will all still be alive at the end of all this.

Yet as he pulls Keith close, his arms tight around his legs and shoulders, he remembers that some of them don’t _have_ anyone to go home to. Pidge’s Dad and brother are still missing, but there’s still her Mum waiting for her. Both he and Lance have their families. But Shiro and Keith… they only have each other.

Hunk tries his best not to cry, but he can’t help it. He looks down at Keith’s face, scarred with night upon night of desperation and grief and fear and helplessness, and there’s nothing he can do to stop himself from crying for them.

The team is all Shiro had to lean on. They’re all Keith has to lean on, but Shiro was his major support beam. Without it, he’s crumbling.

And it’s then Hunk realises that although their thoughts are with Keith, they haven’t exactly been showing it. They’ve been doing things for him, helping him with the searching for Shiro and doing what they can to tell him he’s not alone, but they haven’t spent much time being _with_ him to show him that.

_Why did it have to come to this?_ he thinks. _Does it really take Keith’s health to get this bad for us to notice he’s really not doing well?_

It breaks his heart, knowing he’s guilty of it too.

They’re half-way to the medbay when Hunk crosses paths with Pidge. She halts in her tracks, eyes wide.

“What the quiznak happened to him?” she whispers.

Hunk keeps up the pace, walking fast, but he turns and calls over his shoulder, “I’ll manage with Keith, but can run and get Coran and tell him to meet us in the infirmary – now?”

“Yeah, of course,” Pidge says. She takes of running.

Keith’s not the heaviest, but Hunk’s been carrying him for a solid ten minutes now and it’s starting to hurt Hunk’s arms. He’s a little out of breath but he doesn’t slow down. He can’t afford to. Keith’s still unconscious, meaning it isn’t just a fainting spell they’re dealing with. It’s really bad exhaustion.

There’s only a couple of hundred metres left before they reach the medbay, and that’s when Keith starts twitching.

It starts off as only that – just the odd jump of a muscle in his cheek or the scrunching together of eyelids. But then Keith starts jerking like he’s been shocked and Hunk startles.

“Keith? What’s up? You okay?”

The jerking gets worse. It’s like he’s flinching, hard. Hunk tightens his grip on him and forces himself to walk even faster.

And then Keith screams.

Hunk nearly drops him out of fright. “Keith, what’s wrong?”

He makes it to the medbay and just reaches a bed in the infirmary when the screaming escalates. Keith twists and all but shoves himself out of Hunk’s arms.

But his eyes stay closed. Hunk has to watch him writhe on the bed, shouting, voice hoarse with terror.

“Keith!”

Coran takes over. Hunk stumbles backwards to give him room. Pidge and Lance come in to stand beside him, all three of them staring in horror.

“I think he’s having a nightmare,” Hunk whispers.

 

 

The pain colours his vision in black. He’s dimly aware that he’s not being hit anymore.

“..th,…infir..ry..ow!”

There’s too much fog in his brain to hear what they’re saying, but he can see things.

Keith can see the light of his first foster family’s fireplace dancing behind his eyes. He remembers watching them set the wood on fire that night. The lurch of his heart when his imagination made him see his father’s silhouette in the shadows.

“..eith..”

His heart beats far too quickly. Keith stumbles away from the fire. The shadows morph into an unfamiliar shape, one he doesn’t know but who knows him.

His mother, who left him.

Keith screams. He doesn’t know why. His foster parents don’t know why. They think it has something to do with the fire, so they put it out, but Keith continues screaming. He’s unable to tear his eyes away from the blackened wood.

There’s hands on his face, cool hands. His foster mother’s trying to force him to look away, but he refuses, so she raises her voice at him and Keith loses it.

“…ei- !”

He screams and he kicks and the terror builds in his chest as he finds himself restrained in his foster mother’s arms. She thinks it’s helping but it really isn’t. It really isn’t, it –

_God, I can’t breathe!_

“Kei- !”

His throat constricts with panic and his lungs burn and he can’t get enough air. _I’m going to die, I’m going to die, I’m going to die._

A breath of fresh air passes across his lips and the scene vanishes, giving way to darkness. His heart hammers inside his chest. Something in his brain clicks and he can breathe again, albeit in shallow, desperate gasps.

Someone’s talking to him but he’s not sure who. Keith focuses on it, concentrates on it. Tries to figure out who it belongs to and why the accent is so familiar.

Someone else starts singing and the rhythm of the song slows his heart rate down.

A prick of pain on the inside of his arm and a state of calm begins to wash through the adrenaline.

“…ere you are. Jus…eep breathing, Keith. You’re doing great.”

A gentle hand on his shoulder. A comforting cloak of warmth laid out over him. When he moves his head, what seems to be an oxygen mask bumps against his bicep.

Keith frowns. _Where am I?_

“Hey, man. You with us?”

His head is spinning with fatigue but he forces his eyes open.

A blur of colours and a tilting room. Keith groans, squeezes his eyes shut a moment and tries again.

He’s lying on his side on a bed in the medbay. Pidge – he can tell by her voice – sits behind him, pressing an ice pack against the throbbing bruise on his back. There’s a blanket over him, which is at first confusing, since his shirt is soaked with sweat. Then he realises he’s shivering slightly, although he thinks it’s more from fatigue than being cold, but it could very well be a mix of both.

“How’re you feeling?” Lance asks, voice tight.

Keith pushes himself up so that he’s sitting and removes the mask from his face. He breathes out heavily and slouches forward.

“What happened?”

Pidge lifts the ice pack off the bruise on his back and pokes it. Keith yelps.

“That happened,” she says. “Do you not remember?”

“Um…”

Hunk crouches down beside the bed. “You were passed out on the floor, man. Freaked me out.”

It’s just the four of them in the room and Keith’s heart aches worse than the bruise when he realises why Shiro’s not here with them. He swallows, trying to suppress the anguish before it shows on his face.

He’s not quick enough.

Pidge sets the ice pack aside and wraps her arms around his shoulders. Keith stiffens, but Pidge’s embrace is in no way restricting. She’s comforting him, he realises with a punch to the stomach. Funny – Pidge never seemed like the sort of person who’d….

Oh. It’s because she knows this pain. She knows exactly what he’s going through because she’s still going through it herself. Keith lost Shiro, got him back and lost him again, but Pidge’s Dad and brother have been missing ever since the Kerberos mission.

Pidge gets it.

Lance joins the hug, being careful not to knock the IV line connected to Keith’s elbow, and Hunk stands up beside him to place a warm hand on Keith’s shoulder.

It’s then that Keith realises that, yeah, they do kind of get it after all. Even if they don’t say it out loud, they’re missing their families, too. Allura is. Coran is. 

As the tears start, Keith thinks again of how Shiro asked him to lead the team if anything ever happened to him. So while the pain burns like fire inside of him, these people will continue supporting him through it.

If leading will allow him to support the team in return, then maybe Keith would be willing to give it a go.

For Shiro.


	2. Hunk's Song

“I think he’s having a nightmare. I-I don’t know what…”

“It’s okay, Hunk,” Coran says. “You did your part. Now I’ll do mine.”

Allura’s engaged in a meeting on the bridge, so it’s just the five of them. It’s not easy to think what all conscious four of them are thinking: _If only Shiro were here. He’d know what to do._

Coran leans over Keith and puts his hands on the sides of his face. That only seems to freak him out more, though, instead of grounding him. Keith catches Coran in the knee with a kick and proceeds to try to wrestle himself away from the Altean.

“Keith!”

He’s panicking. It makes the rest of them anxious, but Hunk can’t imagine what Keith’s feeling right now. He’s struggling to breathe properly and it only gets worse until he’s hardly getting any air in at all.

Coran gets an oxygen mask set up over his face and only then does the panic start to ease. He breathes a lot easier and the nightmare seems to have finally gone away.

In the next five minutes, Lance fetches a blanket from the store room and Pidge an ice pack, while Coran sets up an IV. Hunk tries talking to him, but he has no idea what to say to Keith in the way of small talk and if he says anything important then he wants to make sure he hears it.

So he sings.

It’s a song his father used to sing when he was cleaning up after a long day’s work in the garage. A song about the coming and going of day, the passing of the seasons and the fleeting feelings each one brings. Keith won’t understand it – it’s not in English – but the emotion carries in the melody anyway.

There’s a soft look in Coran’s eyes as he sings the second verse. Keith appears less tense. When he reaches the last chorus, a series of sniffles behind him tell him that Lance is crying.

“There you are,” Coran murmurs to Keith after Hunk finishes singing. “Just keep breathing, Keith. You’re doing great.”

They roll him onto his side, arm extended to cushion his head. Pidge crawls up behind him and presses the ice pack over where Coran says the bruise is. Lance lays the blanket out over him.

Hunk decides he’s not leaving the room until Keith knows they’re all here for him, until he knows he’s not alone. He says as much to the others, and Coran, recognising it has an opportunity for decent team bonding, quietly leaves the room.

They wait and sure enough, two minutes later, Keith stirs.


	3. Loner

Hunk helps Keith to the showers after the IV finishes. Pidge gets the fun job of taking his boots back to his room and Lance runs ahead to fetch Keith some fresh clothes.

After Keith’s hopped into the shower stall and passed his really-needing-a-wash clothes under the stall door, Hunk goes to wait in the laundry room which is between the showers and the hallway. He’s just putting Keith’s clothes through a wash cycle when there’s a knock at the outside door.

“Delivery!”

Lance slides the door open. He hands Hunk a pile consisting of shorts, underwear and a red Altean robe. Hunk raises his eyebrow. Would Keith even want to wear this?

“I couldn’t find anything else,” Lance says. “I mean, we all came here with only the clothes on our backs – except for Pidge – so it’s not like we have a lot of spares floating around.”

Hunk frowns. “That’s going to be a problem if we have any more times like this.”

It sounds as though he’s specifically meaning Keith and he can’t help feel a little guilty for the way that just came out. Lance doesn’t seem to notice.

“Didn’t Coran say they had a clothes-replicator or something?”

“I think he said it only worked with clothes made from Altean patterns. I’m not sure. Pidge is keen to have a go getting it to work for other templates, it’s just that we’ve been so busy fighting and strategizing that she hasn’t really had the time.”

Lance nods. “Fair enough. Hopefully Keith doesn’t mind.”

“It’ll only be for half an hour at most, anyways.”

The shower is still going. Hunk wonders if he should be worried or not, but it just sounds like Keith’s taking his time. He wasn’t able to walk very fast and he most certainly isn’t well enough to function at his normal speed, so it makes sense that his movements would be a little sluggish. 

“Alright,” Lance says. “I’ll leave you to it. I was thinking we could all use a break, so…if Keith’s up to it, maybe ask if he wants to come join in a Paladin hang out in the lounge?”

Hunk gives him a half smile. “Yeah, I’ll ask him.”

He highly doubts Keith wants company right now. Keith, the loner, the tough guy, just broke down in front of all of them – mentally and physically. Hunk wouldn’t be surprised if all Keith wants to do right now is curl up in bed and hide for the next day or two.

If that happened, Hunk would bring him food, of course. They’d check up on him, make sure he’s okay…

“Cool,” Lance says. “I might see you soon.”

Hunk grabs a basket and places the clothes in there with a towel folded on top. He enters the shower room and sets the basket down by the stall door where Keith can reach it.

“You alright in there?” he calls.

The shower keeps running.

“Keith?”

A hiccup. “’m fine.”

Hunk isn’t convinced. “You sure?”

“I’ll be out in a sec, just…just give me a minute.”

There’s a terrible strain to Keith’s voice. Hunk can’t believe he didn’t notice earlier, how badly Keith was falling apart inside. He’d mistaken his refusal to rest as stubbornness and desperation, not once considering the possibility that Keith was afraid of what might happen – to himself – should he stop.

This…this is what Keith was afraid of.

The shower stops. Hunk waits patiently in the laundry, ears pricked in case there’s any sign of Keith passing out again. Thankfully that doesn’t happen, and Keith emerges from the shower room relatively fine.

_Good heavens…_

His wet hair and the dark red of the Altean robe make him look like a zombie. It doesn’t help that Keith’s face is a little off colour, but… that’s sleep deprivation if he’s ever seen it. Keith’s barely able to stand still very long without swaying.

Hunk helps him back to his room on unsteady feet. There’s a few times where Keith’s knees give way, but Hunk’s there with his arm locked around Keith’s, supporting him.

“So,” Hunk says when they finally reach their destination. “Lance is setting up a chill session in the Paladin lounge. Do you want to come hang out?”

Keith studies his bare feet. “I, um…”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I totally get it if you just want to be by yourself right now. We’re just going to be lazing around anyways.”

Hunk can’t decipher what it is that passes across Keith’s face. In the end the answer to his question is no, but as Keith opens the door and looks into the inviting darkness of his room, the blood rushes from his face and he sways.

_Oh no._

“Woah, Keith. What’s wrong?”

“I don’t want to be alone,” he whispers hoarsely.

It shows on Keith’s face how much he regrets letting those words – letting that _truth_ – slip out. Though he hastily tries to wipe away the evidence, it’s too late; the dam has burst. The last wall protecting his vulnerability is gone, leaving him exposed.

Hunk pulls him into hug. “Let’s go join the others then, eh?”

Keith breaks down sobbing, struggling to breathe again. It stabs Hunk in the heart.

How much grief has this guy been hiding from them all?

How much stress has he been under trying to act like Shiro’s disappearance isn’t affecting him as much as it is?

All this time…just how badly has this guy needed a hug?

When they enter the Paladin lounge, Lance takes one look at Keith’s dripping hair and goes off to get a towel. Pidge pats a vacant space on the floor next to her. She’s got a massive nest of blankets all set up for them all. Coran’s already half-asleep at the other end.

Hunk helps Keith down by Pidge, then heads off to warm up some food for them all. He crosses paths with Allura on the way back and manages to convince her to join them too.

Half an hour later, Lance and Pidge are playing cards with Allura and Coran, and Keith’s fast asleep leaning against Hunk’s side, a blanket pulled up over him.

Hunk’s deep in thought. They’ve labelled Keith as a loner for far too long. Yes, he prefers the quiet and time to himself, but there’s a difference between that and isolation. Just because he’s awkward about physical contact doesn’t mean he doesn’t crave it.

And while Keith didn’t ask, no one really asked him either. They all just assumed Keith was fine by himself and didn’t really think to ask if he way okay.

In conclusion, Keith’s not the loner everyone thought he was.

 


	4. Abandoned

It’s late when Keith wakes, disorientated. The side of his face is pressed into Hunk’s shoulder, he’s lying on the floor in the Paladin lounge and Lance is saying something about packing up because it’s almost midnight.

_When did we…?_

Oh, right. The scene he caused earlier.

Keith yawns, pushes himself away from Hunk. It’s a mission just keeping his eyes open, and he’s fairly sure the shadows beneath them aren’t a pretty sight, but he’s awake…at least for now.

“Hey, Keith,” Pidge says, flashing him an amused grin.

“Hi,” he croaks.

Lance pauses in packing away the card game they were playing. “You feeling okay?”

Keith grunts. “No.”  _Really wish I hadn’t cried._

“Do you…do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“It’s just that, I dunno, it might help you process things? Maybe now’s not the best time; you look absolutely shattered. But yeah…um…”

“We were talking about it about an hour or so ago,” Hunk supplies. “Saying how you don’t seem to be doing well at all since Shiro disappeared. We hadn’t realised…you’re quite close with Shiro, aren’t you?”

Keith crosses his legs in front of himself and slouches. “He’s like a brother to me. I don’t have any other family.”

He bites his lip. He shouldn’t have said that. Now everyone’s stopped what they’re doing, concerned, and they’re going to start asking questions. But they don’t. They wait for Keith to decide whether he wants to elaborate or not. At first he resents the idea, then thinks twice about it.

This might be the only opportunity like this that he has to tell them.

_May as well get it over and done with._

“So,” Keith says. “I, um… my Mum, she left me. That’s why I didn’t know I had any Galra in me. She left before I knew her, and there were no photos of her around the house so I never even knew – I don’t even know – what she looks like. Dad said he’d tell me about Mum when I was older but he… he never got the chance.”

Keith’s voice pitches on the last few words. He fights to get it back under control but chokes on a sob instead.

“My Dad was a firefighter,” he says. “When I was eight, he…”

The tears spill over. Keith sucks in a breath and hastily wipes at his eyes. His hands are shaking.

“And now Shiro. He’s the closest thing to family I’ve had in years. He’s the only one who never gave up on me. Everyone else did. Apparently I’m too much of a discipline case to deserve second chances. ‘Kogane obviously doesn’t want help,’ they said, ‘so just leave him be.’”

_God…why am I crying so much?_

Lance’s shoulders drop. “Shiro’s the only one who stuck by you, wasn’t he?”

Keith nods.

“And now he’s gone.”

Coran hands him a box of Altean tissue cloth. As Keith takes it and raises a tissue over his nose, he notices Lance and Hunk exchange a cautious glance. Keith blows his nose with greater force than necessary.

“I’m gonna fin’ him,” he says thickly. “I don’t care what you think. I’m gonna find ‘im.”

Pidge shoots Lance a glare. “And we’ll help you where we can.”

The elephant in the room persists, however, and it’s Allura who brings it up.

“And what if we can’t find?”

Keith swipes a fist beneath his eyes. “Then we keep looking.”

“What I mean is, - ”

Pidge twists around to face her. “ _Allura.”_

“- what if we  _can’t_ find him? What if he can’t come back to us?”

Keith hisses. “Shiro was the one person who never gave up me! I’m sure as  _hell_ not giving up on him!”

Allura opens her mouth to try to argue her point but Keith can’t take anymore. He digs his fingers into the tissue box, stands up and hurls it at her.

The tissue box misses, just. He intended it to. Allura stands up slowly, like a cat with its fur on end. 

It’s too much. He’s too exhausted. He’s seeing red.

They’d abandon Shiro that easily, huh?

They’d abandon  _Shiro…_ that easily?

They’ll throw Keith out the first chance they get.

_I can’t lead. I can’t lead._

A horrible torrent of emotions surge through him. Keith screams, heartbeat accelerating.

He wants to run but he can’t. Lance has his arms locked around him.

“Keith, we’ll find him.”

Keith’s chest heaves, panic rising. He tries to shove Lance away but he won’t let go.

Allura mutters something under her breath.

Pidge snaps. “With all due respect, Princess… _shut up._ ”

Keith’s struggling to breathe. His eyes are stretched wide, seeing but not looking. Lance keeps a firm hold on him.

“You don’t think that hasn’t crossed Keith’s mind already? You don’t think it hasn’t crossed mine? Every  _day_ I’m looking for my family. All my efforts could very well be in vain, but do you think for one  _second_ – that’s a tic, by the way, Princess – that I’m going to give up searching for them?

“You know, my Dad has this saying: ‘if you get too worried about what could go wrong, you might miss the chance to do something great.’ In other words, if we get too caught up in thinking there’s no way of finding out what happened to Shiro, he could die out there and not make it all because  _we gave up._ We’re supposed to be ‘defenders of the universe’, aren’t we? Pretty hypocritical saying that if we give up on each other so easily.”

Hunk wraps his arms around Keith and Lance’s shoulders. Keith’s sobbing, hard. Hunk rubs a hand over his back.

Pidge swears and joins in the hug.

A moment of tense quiet. Coran coughs.

“I’m sorry, Keith,” Allura whispers.

There’s not enough room for them to join in to, but Keith would rather they didn’t. Allura, at least.

The air is heavy when they all go to bed that night. Keith stays in the Paladin lounge, needing some space. After Coran double checks to make sure that he’s relatively physically okay, Keith’s left alone.

He sinks back down into the blankets.  _I am such a wreck._

Pidge comes back into the lounge five minutes later with her laptop tucked under her arm.

“You going to sleep out here?” she asks.

Keith shrugs.

“Mind if I join you for a bit? I’ll be as quiet as a mouse.”

“If you want.”

The walls are coming back up again, but Keith is too tired to maintain them for long. As Pidge makes herself comfy on the floor nearby, Keith turns and lies down with his back to her.

_Hopefully she won’t think I’m being rude._

But Pidge is tapping away at the keyboard a second later, lost in whatever train of thought she’s entered. It’s not a harsh tapping, and the rhythm is fairly consistent, so he closes his eyes and lets himself drift.

He’s almost asleep when he feels someone drapes a blanket over him.

Keith’s out like a light after that, exhausted.

 

When he wakes up in the morning, there’s a neatly folded pile of his clothes by his head.

 

 


End file.
